


The Truth, More or Less

by AVegetarianCannibal



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Character Death, Darkness, Everything Hurts, Hannigram - Freeform, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-Series, Sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 22:48:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7380625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AVegetarianCannibal/pseuds/AVegetarianCannibal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will has one last call to make, while he still can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Truth, More or Less

**Author's Note:**

> There's a happier version of this story on my tumblr [ here](http://avegetariancannibal.tumblr.com/post/146777341559/more-or-less).

The phone rings five times before she picks up. “Hello?”

Her voice sounds rough, like she’s been crying or screaming, or both.

Will grips the phone tighter. The entire right side of his face is hot and swollen, throbbing with pain when he talks or even just tries to blink with that eye. The inside of his mangled cheek is worse; he can taste the rot on his tongue.

He has to concentrate to form the words. “It’s me,” he finally says. His breath sounds wheezy and he wonders if he has pneumonia.

Molly is quiet for a long time, not even gasping. She’s not surprised to hear from him, even though he’s supposed to be dead.

“You’re not coming home,” she says finally. Whether it’s a statement of realization or forbidding, he doesn’t know and he doesn’t ask.

“No,” he says. “I just wanted to tell you…You’re safe from–” He draws up short because he was about to say Hannibal’s name, but that’s not the entirety of what he means. “You’re safe from us. I wanted you to know, so you could live your life.”

She lets out a short, harsh laugh. Will winces at how weak his words sound.

“Did I ever even know you at all?” she asks.

“What you knew–who you knew, it was all me,” he says. “It just wasn’t… _all of_ me.”

“All that crap I blindly ignored from the tabloids, the news about his trial,” she says, “that was all you, too, wasn’t it?”

He nods before remembering she can’t see him. “Some of it.” _A lot of it._

“Does that include the things about you being in love with him?” she asks. “No, never mind–don’t answer that. I already know the answer, and I don’t know if it would be better or worse for you to sound sad while you admit it.”

“I’m sorry,” he says.

She laughs again. “Well, I guess ‘worse,’ then.”

“I have to go,” he says. “Please, tell Wally–”

She cuts him off. “I’m telling him you died,” she says. “It’s the truth, isn’t it?”

“More or less,” he agrees.

“I can’t say I wish I’d never met you,” she tells him. “I would like to, but it wouldn’t be the truth, because I love–loved you, and I did it with all of me. I won’t let myself regret love for any reason, but…”

He can hear the tears start in earnest, then, the soft sob and hiccup as she tries to catch her breath. “But?” he asks.

“But,” she says, “I can truthfully say I wish you’d died, and not just more or less.”

There’s one more small, rough sob and then she ends the call.

Will stares at the phone for a long time and thinks about tossing it into the sputtering fire in the hearth. Ultimately, he decides against it, and leaves it on before tucking it into his back pocket.

Now he turns to the shabby mattress on the floor where Hannibal is lying peacefully on his side, body lit by the shifting light of the fire. He looks so handsome still, the silver in his hair looking more like amber where blood has stained it.

Will crawls onto the mattress, curling up behind him. His head throbs with infection and fever, and the deep gash in his chest has started to reek. It hurts to move, but he slides an arm around Hannibal’s middle, where his belly is just starting to swell.

“I’m sure it won’t be long before Jack finds us,” Will tells him, “but I think we have a little time, just the two of us.”

Hannibal isn’t mad, of course. He can't be. Will thinks he’d probably be pleased, even, because they’ll be found together, in one another’s arms. One body will be a day or two further along in decomposition than the other, but it will be obvious when the tableau is found that Hannibal Lecter did not die alone.

Will presses closer to the body before him and kisses the cold skin at the nape of Hannibal’s neck, still salty from the sea, wishing hopelessly that he’d kissed Hannibal when he was still warm, and waits for one last transformation.


End file.
